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Bicycling on the Delmarva Shore
I love bicycling and visiting the seashore. Fortunately, about a three-hour drive from the Washington, D.C., area where I live is a 70-mile stretch of coast where I can do both. It’s one of my favorite Mid-Atlantic biking getaways. Places … Continue reading → Read more
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Cycling the Hudson Valley
Update: For the 2024 tour, the layover day and location and the itinerary past Carmel Hamlet have changed. See the Cycle the Hudson Valley website for details. Ever since I pedaled 400 miles across my home state of New York, … Continue reading → Read more
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Volunteering for Cycle the Erie Canal
Cycle the Erie Canal was not the longest or hardest of my many bicycle tours, but it had the most lasting impact. The friends I made on that 2011 trip, and the friends I made through them, revitalized bicycle touring … Continue reading → Read more
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A Trail Guide to Great Falls in Maryland
The C&O Canal National Historical Park in Maryland is one of the longest and narrowest national parklands in the country. The main walking and cycling route along its entire length is the canal towpath, all 184.5 miles of it. But … Continue reading → Read more
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Great Falls: Maryland and Virginia
“The Great Falls are actually a series of cascades and rapids on a two-thirds of a mile stretch of the Potomac. The river drops about 76 feet over this distance. None of the individual falls exceeds a 20 foot drop.” —Maryland Geological Survey … Continue reading → Read more
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Searching for Little Falls
One day while volunteering at the C&O Canal visitor center at Great Falls, Maryland, a visitor asked an unusual question. “I want to walk to Little Falls,” he said. “Can you tell me the nearest place to it that I … Continue reading → Read more
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Welcome to Great Falls Tavern
Many who enter this building dearly wish it was still a tavern. They’ve hiked the notorious “A” section of the nearby Billy Goat Trail or biked the entire C&O Canal towpath from Cumberland, Maryland, 170 miles away. A few hardy … Continue reading → Read more
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“Bike Walk Drive” at 100
This is my 100th post for Bike Walk Drive. It seems like a good time for a look back at why I created this blog, how it has evolved, what my most popular and favorite posts are, and what might … Continue reading → Read more
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Picture Perfect: Sanibel
Sanibel Island, FloridaDecember 8, 2010 This has not been our best trip to Florida. Unseasonable cold has forced me into jeans and jacket just to walk the beach on Amelia Island—not what Sue and I drove 700 miles south for … Continue reading → Read more
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Traveling in Style on Cape Cod
On a recent trip to Cape Cod, I revisited Heritage Museums and Gardens in Sandwich. Among the surprising finds here are a 1908 Looff carousel, a museum building with changing exhibits relating to Cape Cod, and a display of some … Continue reading → Read more
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Picture Perfect: Hawaii by Air
National Air and Space MuseumJuly 22, 2014 Two days after this photo was taken, the stanchions came down and Hawaii by Air quietly opened to visitors in the museum’s West End gallery. The next day, it officially opened after a … Continue reading → Read more
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A Ghost Fort with a Secret Past
Earlier this year, I watched a 60 Minutes story titled “The Ritchie Boys,” about a highly specialized, secret intelligence unit established during World War II and comprised of U.S. Army soldiers fluent in foreign languages and cultures. Many of them … Continue reading → Read more
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Island Camping at Trap Pond
How often do you get to camp on your own private island? How often do you get to do that in Delaware? Trap Pond State Park, about 27 miles due west of Bethany Beach, was never high on my list … Continue reading → Read more
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Wakulla Springs and Lodge
Wakulla Springs State Park is a wonder in several ways. First, there’s the spring itself, the largest and deepest of the hundreds of springs in Florida. In fact, it is believed to be the largest and deepest freshwater spring in … Continue reading → Read more
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Picture Perfect: Grand Canyon
Grand Canyon National ParkAugust 1979 Staring for the first time into the greatest chasm on earth is a moment you never forget. My first words were, “You want to hike all the way down there?” Hiking the Grand Canyon is … Continue reading → Read more
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Three Fine Florida Museums
People flock to Florida for its warmth and waters, not its museums. And yet in my sunshine state travels, I’ve come across several that are now among my favorites. Here are three I recently visited. I could have included the … Continue reading → Read more
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Cycling Through Oil Country
A Voyage Across an Ancient Ocean: A Bicycle Journey Through the Northern Dominion of Oil David Goodrich, 2020 While browsing the new books at a public library recently, I saw a familiar name. David Goodrich, a retired climate scientist and … Continue reading → Read more
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Picture Perfect: Selkirk
Boston, MassachusettsApril 29, 2006 I’m at a museum conference in Boston, with free time on a lovely spring day. So I ride the Green Line to Brighton to visit a memory-haunted house. I hop off the trolley at Sutherland and … Continue reading → Read more
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Soldiering Through the National Museum of the U.S. Army
Growing up in the 1960s, I was obsessed with World War II. I watched Combat!, The Gallant Men, and 12 O’Clock High on TV. I replayed with toy guns and grenades the movies The Longest Day and The Guns of Navarone in the woods beyond our street. I … Continue reading → Read more
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Camping in Prince William Forest Park
When I go camping alone, I’m looking to get away from people. I typically go off season and during the week. I seek out tent-only campground areas and choose the most private site I can find. Itching to spend a … Continue reading → Read more
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On the National Road in Western Maryland
The National Road is not as renowned as Route 66, or the Pacific Coast Highway, or even the Lincoln Highway of early 20th century fame. Although once immensely important, it is now really less of a road than a route, … Continue reading → Read more
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The Rail Trails of Morgantown
Rails to Trails Conservancy in 2015 devoted one of its Rail Trail Sojourn bicycle tours to exploring the trails radiating from Morgantown, West Virginia, best known as the home of West Virginia University (and less known as the birthplace of … Continue reading → Read more
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Picture Perfect: Finish Line
Albany, New YorkJuly 17, 2011 We have just bicycled 400 miles across New York State along the Erie Canal. I’m at the far right. Next to me is Barb from Pennsylvania, who had her long hair shorn a few days … Continue reading → Read more
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Back to the Building Museum
The National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., is one of the city’s lesser-known treasures and one of my favorite local museums. I began volunteering at the visitor information desk in November 2019, just before the museum closed for several months … Continue reading → Read more
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Picture Perfect: Niagara Dry
Niagara Falls, New YorkJune 1969 The walk is called the Cave of the Winds, but there is no cave anymore, and on this day no winds. No water either. Had my sisters and I been here a few weeks ago, … Continue reading → Read more
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Picture Perfect: Grace
East Lansing, MichiganDecember 31, 1979 I bike down to the campus early this morning in thick fog. It is New Year’s Eve. No one else is around. I walk along the Red Cedar River and into the woods. I have … Continue reading → Read more
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Traveling Lightly
Back in the late 1970s when I lived in Boston, I took a continuing education course on backpacking. It culminated with a two-day, two-night camping trip and hike up Mount Chocorua in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. It was my first … Continue reading → Read more
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More Postcards from the Road
Last February, I posted Postcards from the Road, which featured a selection of postcards I’d collected on my travels around the country. I recently discovered a couple more batches, bringing my collection of postcards to nearly 300. And that’s not … Continue reading → Read more
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Picture Perfect: Traveler
Somewhere in the MidwestNovember 1980 Tom took this picture of me and my car at a rest stop while driving from Michigan State to Pasadena. We were traveling to an educators conference at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where we would … Continue reading → Read more
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Picture Perfect: Seagull
Half Moon Bay, CaliforniaAugust 25, 2012 I am an early riser. My sister Judy is not. So on this visit, I quickly settle into a morning routine. I quietly close the front door behind me, walk down Spindrift Way, and … Continue reading → Read more
Bike Walk Drive
Here There Then
Bike Walk Drive 